Star Angel: Dawn of War (Star Angel Book 3)

by David G. McDaniel

  Inside was more of a cask cellar, really, above ground, at least the parts that could be seen in the gloom. Some of the developing sunlight had started to find its way through cracks. The whole space had a strong, musty smell, dirt floor strewn with a thin covering of old straw. Aged equipment hung here and there, other pieces sitting unused among a bunch of large, wooden barrels.

  “I was looking around,” Zac said as he led her into the dark. “Right before I heard the helicopters fly in I found something. Back here.”

  His voice was amplified in the large, cluttered confines, no other sounds to compete with; no birds, no animals, no breeze, their feet nearly silent on the hard dirt floor.

  He led her through a door toward the rear, into a ramshackle wooden corridor. “This was more than just a safehouse,” he said.

  They reached the end of the hall and a wall. A little light came through a few broken planks along the sides. To Jess it looked like a dead end. Zac did something with a concealed knob and the wall swung back to reveal a set of stairs. Inside the small landing he reached and pulled a chain and a dim, bare bulb came on overhead, swinging from its cord. It cast feeble illumination down a long flight of stairs that led into the ground. Shadows slid back and forth with each swing as they descended, ominous, the incandescent bulb lighting the way harshly from above.

  At the bottom was a massive bank-vault door.

  Like the entrance to a steel bunker or something—a high-tech, fortified contrast to the old-wood, aged architecture of everything leading to that point—it was pulled from its hinges. Hanging away, leaning to the side at an odd angle and falling into its recess. Shiny steel casings gleamed where they’d been sheared like sheet metal and peeled away, along with other signs of trauma; solid steel pins the size of pipes forced back, bent, sheared or popped through their retaining notches. The door was feet thick, most likely weighed many tons yet there it sat, broken open like she might’ve forced her way into a locked Scooby Doo lunch box or something. She stared wide-eyed at Zac. She knew what he was capable of. Had seen it. But this, somehow, took the cake. This …

  This was beyond anything so far.

  Just what were his limits?

  “I seem to be getting stronger,” he said by way of explanation. He felt it too. And he, like her, was at a loss.

  Carefully he reached a hand for her. She took it and stepped with him over the threshold, following nervously as he found a switch and flipped it on. The interior of the chamber came alive in the white/green of industrial-grade fluorescent bulbs.

  “I didn’t have a chance to look at much before they came,” he said.

  Nervously Jess scanned the room, tensing, feeling as if an army of telekinetic madmen might descend on them at any moment. Inside was clearly some sort of operations center, maps on the wall, desks with files and all sorts of neatly organized, high-tech items. All of it shiny, hard and sterile.

  Her eyes were drawn to one of the maps.

  And as she recognized what it depicted, as she saw the info written neatly upon it, her blood ran cold.

  CHAPTER 41: MOMENT OF CRISIS

  “That’s a map of your country, right?” Zac pointed. Jess couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

  It was indeed. And, right there with it …

  A street map of Boise.

  Right there on the wall. In a high-tech underground bunker, in the mountains outside Madrid, in the lair of the enemy; right at its heart. A map of her home town. And there, inked with red circles, arrows and written notes, was her house.

  My house.

  She began shivering.

  “It looked like what you told me about,” said Zac. “What you showed me on the ship,” he pointed to the area, referencing, of course, the maps of the U.S. she’d shown him aboard the Reaver. He had, indeed, identified it correctly, though he was having a hard time understanding why she was so shocked.

  Then he seemed to get what she was looking at. “Wait.” And he, too, realized what she already had.

  “Is that your house?” He was incredulous. Then: “What are they doing with maps of your house?” He looked closer, reading the writing, the notes, the scribbles—everything.

  Stiffening with a certain, dawning rage.

  Jess scanned and scanned again.

  Fear compounding.

  It wasn’t even a small map, a subset of some larger thing or an afterthought or something else—which would’ve been bad enough. It was a big, color map, dominant on the wall, with details, covering a major section. There were other maps as she turned to look around the room, clearly other points of interest to the Bok, but the map of her home appeared to be as major as any of the rest.

  If not more so.

  The empty feeling in the pit of her stomach grew. A great, yawning emptiness, that horrible feeling of being violated. How long had this been here? She turned her attention to the table beneath the map, then to the desk; stepped to it, opened and started rifling through drawers, faster, even as Zac’s own anger built. He began looking with her.

  “What the hell were they doing?”

  As he spoke she found a folder. With plans. Printed plans, detailing an operation to take out the Americans—the Project—and raid the house belonging to the girl.

  Me.

  Inside the same folder were pictures. Snapshots of Mom. Dad. Amy. She had to struggle not to drop them.

  “Is that your family?” Zac asked from over her shoulder. Slowly she handed him the pics, feeling sick. He took them, looking at the faces of the people that were most important in her life.

  With a surge of will she pulled herself together. Turned back to the contents of the folder and devoured the pages, the schematics, pouring over everything in a rush, unable to read quickly enough. The Americans they spoke of were definitely the Project. The Project likely didn’t know the Bok’s plans, however the Project were smart enough to assume the Bok would try something and so, according to what was written here, had been keeping surveillance on Jessica’s home in Boise. It was proof of exactly what Nani said; the Project suspected the Bok were watching for her.

  She looked up. Digesting that bit of information.

  The Project were trying to protect me. Or at least they were trying to make sure the Bok didn’t get to her first.

  She resumed her aggressive read. Flipping pages, flipping back. Zac straightened, clearly lost, deciding to wait for her to comment. The Bok wanted her. They believed she might be hiding something at her house, or might’ve left something, and they only became aware of her, apparently, around the same time as the Project. This whole set of information here was hasty, recent, put together following those events. Obviously, though, the Bok were doing a better job of spying on the Project than the Project was doing spying on them. Following events in Boise the Bok quickly made her a prime target.

  She looked up at the map.

  Important enough to plan an operation to watch for her return.

  “Check this out,” said Zac. She turned to him, the stack of shuffled papers gripped tightly in her hands.

  “This is Spain, right?” He was standing at another map across the room, that one framed.

  She went closer. Stood beside him. The map was, indeed, a map of the country they were in. The Iberian peninsula. A satellite photo. Shades of green and brown, lines for elevation, faint demarcations for borders but otherwise a true image.

  “Look at these,” he pointed. The map had red dots on it. Not many, each with small, typeset print beside it. He touched one in particular. “This is about where we’re at, right?”

  It was. A red dot, right there near where they should be, practically on top of Madrid at that scale. She peered closer. Read the name beside it: Jeklakt. For a flash it sounded Kel, and she dismissed the thought as soon as she had it, then …

  Would that be so strange?

  The Bok were Kel. Or, more precisely, humans that had been part of a Kel rebellion in the distant past. Now here was a location with, she was sud
denly convinced, a Kel name. That wasn’t an Earth language, she was pretty sure. Jeklakt.

  “Is it a base?” Zac touched the map. “You think that’s a marker for this place we’re in now?”

  For some reason she didn’t.

  “This is just some kind of way station,” she said, meaning the farm and the vault. She pointed to the dot. “That’s bigger. Close to where we’re at, but bigger.”

  Beneath the map was a small safe, bolted to the wall. A safe within a safe, if you counted the room they were in as a giant safe.

  “Open that,” she said. Zac did so without question. Didn’t look at her. Didn’t pause. No careful peeling of hinges, no subtlety. Simply BANG! his fist was through the metal door and yanking it away. It was so loud, it was dramatic, and she squinted from the force of the impact, turning away as he tossed aside the compromised door. Metal pieces hit the floor with an echoing clang.

  She shook it off.

  Inside were binders. She fairly snatched them out, setting aside the other papers in her hands as she tore into this new trove of information and, in no time, had found a reference to the map on the wall. Impatient to make a connection she rifled through the laminated sheets, glancing up at the map, down at the binders, piecing it together, wondering why the Bok would arrange it this way—with a safe inside to keep the details so obviously in sight yet ultra secure. It had a feel of arrogance to it, like a constant visual reminder of territory.

  The whole place reeked of arrogance.

  She found the location they were currently, the farm, then its relationship to the bigger, main base not far away. The red dot on the map. A castle, right there in Spain.

  Jeklakt. It had a name.

  A Kel name.

  Where Lorenzo fled.

  It must be.

  “Look,” she showed Zac. “Here it is.” As she suspected, not far. “Right up the road. It’s a frickin castle. One of their bases.” She touched it. “That has to be where Lorenzo went.”

  Zac turned at once, very nearly about to go—that instant—but hesitated and looked into her eyes.

  Remembering all that was at stake.

  “I can’t leave you,” he said. Then, rethinking everything: “We need to make contact. This has gone on long enough. We need to find a way to reach Nani.”

  “It has gone on long enough.” Jess hated the Bok so much right then. “I’m tired of their shit. I’m tired of all this. We—you—can end this right now.” And she decided. “We’re going.” She touched the map again. “This is not far away. Not at all. They have to be there. We’re going and we’re going to stop them.”

  Too much time had been wasted.

  “They’re no match for you,” she marveled at the intensity of the fury building within her. So mad, almost seeing red, ready to rush off to grab the Bok herself.

  Kill them, insisted her passionate bloodlust in that moment.

  But she had to bring some reason to bear. Zac was shaking his head. Subtly, but his resistance was clear.

  “We’ve seen that,” she said. “I don’t care what crazy powers they’re using. We keep the heat on and get them now. Before they scatter.” She thought of the dead commandoes up above. “If they haven’t already.” Worried the Bok may already have fled far and wide.

  Zac, however, as determined to settle the Bok score as was she, had deep reservations. “Jessica,” he put a hand on her shoulder; implored: “It doesn’t make sense to keep this up.”

  But she pointed to the dot on the map. “They’re right here.” They were close. “We can end this.”

  “I can’t keep letting you put yourself in danger,” he tried to argue. “Not anymore. Last night, when I was walking around, before I found this, before they came, I had time to think. And I realized you’re right. About everything you said over dinner. It’s time to end this. Time for you to stop risking your life.” He swallowed. “I won’t let you. I’m indestructible, you’re not.” He was trying to be firm. Not confident whether he could, in fact, tell her what to do.

  She appreciated that he feared her. It meant he would do what she said. It also meant she must be absolutely sure of her own decision.

  “You were right,” she told him. “I wasn’t making any sense. I was being emotional. I’m past that. We have to follow through. End this. The time we’ve lost is my fault.” She kicked herself for the wasted day, feeling her own change of heart acutely, the swing to a sudden impulse to finish what they started—so different than her desire of last night to run away, to just put the whole mess behind. An irrational fancy, that idea, and she saw that now; silly, driven by no sleep, compounded by the day with Zac—a day that absolutely blew her mind, to such an incredible degree, loosening and shifting her entire universe … But none of that mattered. She could never go back. She’d already realized that long ago and it was time to stop getting distracted.

  It was, as she pointed out, time to end this.

  “Jessica …”

  She held him with a steady gaze. Anger drove her current frame of mind, she had no illusions of that, but her enraged determination was not unreasonable. She knew that as well. She couldn’t name it, but she could feel it, and this impulse for closure rocked her. The absolute affront of the attempted commando assault, bent on killing them, the discovery, right there in that room, that the Bok, in fact, had their eyes on her and her family, with malign intent; confirmation that the Bok were out to get her; Lorenzo’s attempt on them in the club; the girl’s attempt to drown her right there on the farm … Her mind was made. The Bok were here. She was here. Zac was here.

  The time was now.

  The Bok’s day of reckoning was at hand.

  “We have this.” She gestured around the interior of the vault. Filled with information. Who knew what else waited at the castle. Maybe the Bok did have other Icons. Other artifacts. Knowledge of the Kel. Surely they had other secrets.

  “We have you.” She gave that a moment. Then: “We’re just down the road,” she pointed to the map. “Minutes away. We’re going to put an end to this.” She stood straight, chest inflated with fresh determination. “We know where Lorenzo is and we’re getting him. No more waiting.”

  Zac’s distress was clear. His untouchable power, however, was just as obvious. There was no way he could fail. Not against the Bok. And, like an Alpha Male Great Dane or something, fully with a mind of his own but, in the final bargain, a follower of his master’s wishes, Zac would do as she said. He would follow. Her decision had been made; the command was given.

  She only hoped she was right.

  * *

  Cee-Ranok strode aboard her shuttle, followed by two personal guards; elite warriors in ceremonial armor, long rifles held across their chests as they marched in step. Her bishop trailed to the side, the shuttle door closing behind as they entered. The shuttle was well-appointed, the Tremarch’s private coach, and she absorbed the change as they transitioned from the stark metal corridor of the dreadnought to the softer interior of her private craft.

  She continued on across the entry room, to the forward seating area where her captain waited.

  “Make ready to depart,” she said and went to her in-flight throne, a large, ornate chair that dominated the small space. It faced a screen that covered the entirety of one wall, making the wall look transparent—as if looking through a floor-to-ceiling window directly out the front of the craft. At present it looked out on the interior of the hold in which they were docked.

  “At once, my queen.” The captain left for the front, for the cockpit, to get them underway.

  Cee keyed the screen and an image from the dreadnought’s bridge appeared. Voltan was there, along with Kang. Kel crew manned stations in the background, preparing for departure.

  “We’re aboard,” she announced.

  Voltan turned to face her.

  “Very good,” he said. “All craft have checked in. Once you’re clear we will move to our departure point.”

  Cee inhaled. More ex
cited than she had been in a long, long time. They’d done it. Taken this potentially dangerous situation, the arrival of Kang, and turned it into what promised to be the birth of a grand empire. They’d cracked the device brought by him and made its information part of their systems, enabling their craft to travel to the stars with a specific destination in mind:

  Kang’s world.

  Anitra, he called it; where waited a real enemy, one the Kel could conquer. One that was being handed them on a platter, ripe for the taking. New territory. A new empire to be forged. Her people would have direction again, purpose.

  It was the dawn of a new age.

  * *

  Lindin looked out the panoramic window, over the city of Osaka. Capital of the enemy and there he was, high in a room in their own Tower of Light, being shown every courtesy.

  He took a sip of the hot sake that had been provided, enjoying the serenity of the lavish setting. It was so unreal to be standing at that spectacular vantage, looking out over the surrounding fields from inside the city walls, fields where not so long ago he and the Venatres army were engaged in a fiery campaign to invade. Strange as all this was it had, surprisingly, not been that hard to move on. After arriving for the summit he and each of the delegates from Venatre were given a similar room, there on that floor, and, following the discussions of the day, he’d chosen to retire and recharge. Absorb a little quiet and collect his thoughts. Some of the others chose a tour of the city.

  All day the focus had been on this historic meeting and the promise it held. Their entire world had been shaken in so many ways over the last half-year, from the complete ruin and upheaval of the Dominion’s core leadership to the wars and counter-invasion that followed, the arrival of Kang and all the damage that caused, now a coup among the ranks of the Dominion generals overseas—still fighting, still waging war in Venatres lands—followed by the discovery that the Venatres had been hiding something so advanced as to be world-changing: